STAMFORD — Board of Education members threatened to find a new facilities management firm for the district after ABM, which currently manages the district’s facilities, failed to send anyone from its corporate offices to a meeting to discuss custodial overtime spending.

Facilities manager Rich Lyons took questions and complaints about his employer, ABM, from board members who expressed frustration over the lack of involvement from the corporate offices in the discussion about how the district can curb its custodial overtime spending after going well over its original budget earlier this year.

“I really don’t enjoy us having you sit here and take all this heat,” said board chair David Mannis. “I was very disappointed some of the folks from ABM aren’t here. We’ve been pretty specific about wanting to get to know them better and raise some of these issues with them.”

Threats of finding a new vendor and re-examining the ABM contract were made as board members went through a 25-page report breaking down the facilities department overtime for the 2017-2018 fiscal year.

“I’m very disappointed with their performance,” board member Mike Altamura said of ABM. “We tried to go through the superintendent...it’s ridiculous we’re dealing with a company and they don’t have enough common sense to send somebody down from corporate or higher up to come and talk to the board. Very soon we’ll start looking for a better vendor.”

In March of 2017, ABM was hired to take over the maintenance of public school buildings from AFB Contstruction Management, which managed Stamford Public School facilities for over two decades before the CEO of the firm, Al Barbarotta, was placed under local and FBI investigation over whether or not he used his company’s position to extort money from another city contractor. ABM was hired with a 27-month contract through June 30, 2019 and is being paid $553,000 this school year.

According to superintendent Earl Kim, this contract was designed so the district could go to bid again if the arrangement didn’t work out.

ABM did not respond to calls for comment as to why no company representatives attended the meeting.

The district is projected to spend nearly $2.5 million in custodial overtime by the end of the fiscal year at the end of June accounting for over 40,000 hours of extra shifts. In fiscal year 2014, the district spent $1.3 million in custodial overtime.

At least $542,000 of overtime cost was for shift coverage, particularly for part-time custodians, raising some concerns about the number of vacancies. According to Lyons’ report to the board, there were seven full-time vacancies. There are also two openings on the ABM side after custodial manager Chris Velez and trades manager Davor Lucaj resigned last month.

Lyons said ABM is issuing credits to the district to make up for the resignations. However, Altamura had questions about whether the city could be charged for the delay in hiring new custodians. According to Lyons, several of the lead vacancies were the result of people who declined promotions to stay in their current schools and it takes about 30 to 45 days for the city, which is in charge of retaining custodians, to approve new hires.

But when asked if the city could be held responsible for the cost to the district, Lyons shrugged.

Board member Nicola Tarzia said part of the solution may come from re-examining the terms of the ABM contract, as well as hiring more custodians, since shortages have been occurring since 2008.

Under the current contract, ABM and Milello Maintenance, its subcontractor, are responsible for hiring part-time employees, but do not pick up the costs to the district for part-time shortages.